Category Archives: Video

Neil Kramer on Hypnotic Handshakes & Jedi Mind Tricks

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Neil Kramer recently posted an interesting piece on hypnosis, Neural Linguistic Programing and social control. He began his essay with an analysis of the tricks of illusionist Darren Brown. While seemingly magic, they’re actually a skillful use of various psychological reading and manipulation techniques which exploit subconscious and unconscious processes (ie. mirroring, eye accessing cues, cold reading and NLP).  To explain some of the psychological mechanisms behind such “Jedi mind tricks”, he provides the following description of a hypnotic handshake:

Many actions are learned and operate as a single chunk of behavior: shaking hands and tying shoelaces being two good examples. However, if the behavior is diverted or frozen midway, the person literally has no mental space for this. He is stopped in the middle of unconsciously executing a behavior without a corresponding pattern. The mind crashes, suspending itself in trance until either something happens to give a new direction, or it reboots itself. A skilled hypnotist uses that momentary confusion and suspension of normal processes to induce a TDS trance.

By interrupting the pattern of a normal handshake in a particular manner, the hypnotist causes the subject to wonder what is going on. If the handshake continues to develop in a way which is out-of-keeping with expectations, a simple, non-verbal trance is created, which may then be reinforced by the hypnotist. All these responses happen naturally and automatically without telling the subject to consciously focus on an idea.

Also intriguing and relevant to the current moment is Kramer’s analysis of how principles of hypnosis are used by corporate media as a tool for mass control and manipulation:

Confusion is a tool used by hypnotists to put the subject into an altered state. The slumbering brain state induced by injudiciously watching TV and surfing the net achieves exactly the same thing. This is how the Empire implants its messages deep into the minds of the great unwashed masses. To the unconscious observer, the messages are not properly perceived at the point of entry. They are nevertheless permanently recorded in precise detail and influence the individual emotionally, intellectually, and physically with their latent memes.

For this to have impact on a mass scale, people need to also believe that they are finite, separate, the world happens “out there”, and they are essentially powerless. Once this is achieved, the covert messaging is much more readily absorbed. The isolated little human seeks comfort and reassurance wherever he can find it. If the mind is suitably controlled, the thrill of a new gadget, the delight of a new snack food, the consolation of a new TV drama, and the platitudes of government, may constitute all the solace required to get through another day. The prescribed messaging sinks in and no-one is any the wiser.

This deception can be swiftly dismantled with one simple mental gear shift: for the common man to cease regarding his mind as some plain old fiddle churning out the tunes of unseen dubious impresarios – and instead to recognize it as an exquisite Stradivarius violin that is at its greatest when playing the authentic and beautiful music of his own making.

Read the complete essay here: http://neilkramer.com/hypnotic-handshakes-jedi-mind-tricks.html

YouTube user Hypernosis0’s channel features a number of clips deconstructing Darren Brown’s techniques including the following example:

This episode of Stuff They Don’t Want You to Know examines how marketers employ behavioral psychology and neuroscience to encourage consumerism:

What’s Wrong With TED Talks?

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Though it was released late last year, I just recently found this provocative speech from Benjamin Bratton which addresses problems of the TED talks format ironically delivered as a TED talk (hat tip to 21st Century Wire).

Many of the issues brought up by Bratton have previously been addressed through satire in various Onion Talks.

Despite its problems, in defense of TED it is to their credit that they allowed a forum for an anti-TED presentation. There have also been a few thought provoking TED talks that I felt did not fall into the trap of over-simplification and yet conveyed ideas elegantly and efficiently. Unfortunately, some of those have been censored for ideological reasons, including this must-see talk by Nick Hanauer about economic inequality:

Saturday Matinee: Meet the Feebles

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Long before director Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings blockbusters and even before the moderate success of his cult horror film “Dead Alive”, he created a gleefully twisted take on the Muppets, “Meet the Feebles” (1989). A brief synopsis from IMDB:

Heidi, the star of the “Meet The Feebles Variety Hour” discovers her lover Bletch, The Walrus, is cheating on her, and with all the world waiting for the show the assorted co-stars must contend with their own problems. These include drug addiction, extortion, robbery, disease, Drug dealing, and even murder. While this is happening the love between two of the stars is threatened by the devious Trevor the Rat, who wishes to exploit the young starlet for use in his porno movie business.

Obama to Putin: Do as I Say Not as I Do

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By Ralph Nader

Originally posted at Counterpunch.org

Dear President Obama:

As you ponder your potential moves regarding President Vladimir V. Putin’s annexation of Crimea (a large majority of its 2 million people are ethnic Russians), it is important to remember that whatever moral leverage you may have had in the court of world opinion has been sacrificed by the precedents set by previous American presidents who did not do what you say Mr. Putin should do – obey international law.

The need to abide by international law is your recent recurring refrain, often used in an accusatory context toward Mr. Putin’s military entry in Crimea and its subsequent annexation, following a referendum in which Crimean voters overwhelmingly endorsed rejoining Russia. True, most Ukrainians and ethnic Tatars boycotted the referendum and there were obstacles to free speech. But even the fairest of referendums, under UN auspices, would have produced majority support for Russia’s annexation.

Every day, presidential actions by you violate international law because they infringe upon national sovereignties with deadly drones, flyovers and secret forays by soldiers – to name the most obvious.

President Bush’s criminal invasion and devastation of Iraq in 2003 violated international law and treaties initiated and signed by the United States (such as the Geneva Conventions and the UN Charter). What about your executive branch’s war on Libya, now still in chaos, which was neither constitutionally declared, nor authorized by Congressional appropriations?

“Do as I say, not as I do,” is hard to sell to Russians who are interpreting your words of protest as disingenuous. This is especially the case because Crimea, long under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, became part of Russia over 200 years ago. In 1954, Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev gave Crimea to Ukraine, which was then part of the Soviet Union, out of sympathy for what Ukraine endured under the Nazi invasion and its atrocities. It mattered little then because both “socialist republics,” Ukraine and Crimea, were part of the Soviet Union. However, it is not entirely clear whether Khrushchev fully complied with the Soviet constitution when he transferred Crimea to Ukraine.

Compare, by the way, the United States’ seizure of Guantanamo from Cuba initially after the Spanish-American War, which was then retained after Cuba became independent over a century ago.

The Russians have their own troubles, of course, but they do have a legitimate complaint and fear about the United States’ actions following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Led by President William Jefferson Clinton, the United States pushed for the expansion of the military alliance NATO to include the newly independent Eastern European countries. This was partly a business deal to get these countries to buy United States fighter aircrafts from Lockheed Martin and partly a needless provocation of a transformed adversary trying to get back on its feet.

As a student of Russian history and language at Princeton, I learned about the deep sensitivity of the Russian people regarding the insecurity of their Western Front. Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union took many millions of Russian lives. The prolonged Nazi siege of the city of Leningrad alone is estimated to have cost over 700,000 civilian lives, which is about twice the total number of United States soldiers killed in World War II.

The memories of that mass slaughter and destruction, and of other massacres and valiant resistance are etched deeply in Russian minds. The NATO provocation was only one of the West’s arrogant treatments of post-Soviet Russia, pointed out in the writings of Russian specialist, NYU professor Stephen Cohen (see his pieces in The Nation here:http://www.thenation.com/authors/stephen-f-cohen). That sense of disrespect, coupled with the toppling of the elected pro-Russian President of Ukraine in February, 2014 (which was not lawful despite his poor record) is why Mr. Putin’s absorption of Crimea and his history-evoking speech before the Parliament, was met with massive support in Russia even by many of those who have good reasons to not like his authoritarian government.

Now, you are facing the question of how far to go with sanctions against the Russian government, its economy and its ruling class. Welcome to globalization.

Russia is tightly intertwined with the European Union, as a seller and buyer of goods, services and assets, and to a lesser but significant degree with the United States government and its giant corporations such as oil and technology companies. Sanctions can boomerang, which would be far worse than just being completely ineffective in reversing the Russian annexation of Crimea.

As for sanctions deterring any unlikely future Russian moves westward into Ukraine, consider the following role reversal. If Russia moved for sanctions against the United States before Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and other attacks, would that have deterred either you or George W. Bush from taking such actions? Of course not. Such an outcome, politically and domestically, would not be possible.

If you want continued Russian cooperation, as you do, on the critical Iranian and Syrian negotiations, ignore the belligerent baying pack of neocons who always want more United States wars, which they and their adult children avoid fighting themselves. Develop a coalition of economic support for Ukraine, with European nations, based on observable reforms of that troubled government. Sponsor a global conference on how to enforce international law as early as possible.

Drop the nonsense of evicting Russia from the G8 – a get-together forum of leaders. Get on with having the United States comply with international law, and our constitution on the way to ending the American Empire’s interventions worldwide, as has been recommended by both liberal and conservative/libertarian lawmakers, along with much public opinion.

Concentrate on America, President Obama, whose long unmet necessities cry out from “sea to shining sea.”

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer and author of Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us! He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, published by AK Press. Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition.

Editor’s note: Those unfamiliar with the life and career of Ralph Nader should check out the excellent documentary “An Unreasonable Man” (2006), which happens to be available on YouTube:

The War Activists

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By David Swanson

Originally posted at ConsortiumNews.com

War activists, like peace activists, push for an agenda.  We don’t think of war activists as “activists” because they rotate in and out of government positions, receive huge amounts of funding, have access to big media, and get meetings with top officials just by asking — without having to generate a protest first.

They also display great contempt for the public and openly discuss ways to manipulate people through fear and nationalism — further shifting their image away from that of popular organizers. But war activists are not journalists, not researchers, not academics. They don’t inform or educate. They advocate. They just advocate for something that most of the time, and increasingly, nobody wants.

William Kristol and Robert Kagan and their organization, the Foreign Policy Initiative, stand out as exemplary war activists. They’ve modified their tone slightly since the days of the Project for the New American Century, an earlier war activist organization. They talk less about oil and more about human rights. But they insist on U.S. domination of the world. They find any success by anyone else in the world a threat to the United States.

And they demand an ever larger and more frequently used military, even if world domination can be achieved without it. War, for these war activists, is an end in itself. As was much more common in the 19th century, these agitators believe war brings strength and glory, builds character, and makes a nation a Super Power.

Kristol recently lamented U.S. public opposition to war. He does have cause for concern. The U.S. public is sick of wars, outraged by those in Iraq and Afghanistan, and insistent that new ones not be begun. In September, missile strikes into Syria were successfully opposed by public resistance. In February, a new bill to impose sanctions on Iran and commit the United States to joining in any Israeli-Iranian war was blocked by public pressure. The country and the world are turning against the drone wars.

The next logical step after ending wars and preventing wars would be to begin dismantling the infrastructure that generates pressure for wars. This hasn’t happened yet. During every NCAA basketball game the announcers thank U.S. troops for watching from 175 nations. Weapons sales are soaring. New nukes are being developed. NATO has expanded to the edge of Russia. But the possibility of change is in the air. A new peace activist group at WorldBeyondWar.org has begun pushing for war’s abolition.

Here’s Kristol panicking:

“A war-weary public can be awakened and rallied. Indeed, events are right now doing the awakening. All that’s needed is the rallying. And the turnaround can be fast. Only 5 years after the end of the Vietnam war, and 15 years after our involvement there began in a big way, Ronald Reagan ran against both Democratic dovishness and Republican détente. He proposed confronting the Soviet Union and rebuilding our military. It was said that the country was too war-weary, that it was too soon after Vietnam, for Reagan’s stern and challenging message. Yet Reagan won the election in 1980. And by 1990 an awakened America had won the Cold War.”

Here’s Kagan, who has worked for Hillary Clinton and whose wife Victoria Nuland has just been stirring up trouble in Ukraine as Assistant Secretary of State. This is from an article by Kagan much admired by President Barack Obama:

“As Yan Xuetong recently noted, ‘military strength underpins hegemony.’ Here the United States remains unmatched. It is far and away the most powerful nation the world has ever known, and there has been no decline in America’s relative military capacity — at least not yet.”

This pair is something of a good-cop/bad-cop team. Kristol bashes Obama for being a wimp and not fighting enough wars. Kagan reassures Obama that he can be master of the universe if he’ll only build up the military a bit more and maybe fight a couple more wars here and there.

The response from some Obama supporters has been to point out that their hero has been fighting lots of wars and killing lots of people, thank you very much. The response from some peace activists is to play to people’s selfishness with cries to bring the war dollars home. But humanitarian warriors are right to care about the world, even if they’re only pretending or badly misguided about how to help.

It’s OK to oppose wars both because they kill huge numbers of poor people far from our shores and because we could have used the money for schools and trains. But it’s important to add that for a small fraction of U.S. military spending we could ensure that the whole world had food and clean water and medicine. We could be the most beloved nation. I know that’s not the status the war activists are after. In fact, when people begin to grasp that possibility, war activism will be finished for good.

David Swanson is a peace pundit, antiwar author and talk radio host. He is syndicated by PeaceVoice. His books include War No More. He hosts Talk Nation Radio.

More about the Foreign Policy Initiative from Abby Martin, who was recently a target of their attacks:

Saturday Matinee: Nothing Lasts Forever

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“Nothing Lasts Forever” (1984) is the only feature length film directed by Tom Schiller (who was an early writer and director for Saturday Night Live), but it’s a remarkable one. The film takes place in a dystopian world in which the Port Authority controls New York and determines the career paths of citizens based on mandatory tests. After failing an art test, aspiring artist Adam (Zach Galligan) is forced to work as a Holland Tunnel inspector under authoritarian boss Buck (Dan Aykroyd). After getting a brief taste of the art world through an artist he has an affair with, he befriends a homeless man who gives him an opportunity to fulfill his destiny on the moon.

Nothing Lasts Forever could be characterized as a lower budget and more hopeful precursor to “Brazil”. Besides Aykroyd, the film features appearances by comedians such as Bill Murray, Imogene Coca, and legendary stand-up comic (and mentor of Lenny Bruce) Mort Sahl. Due to copyright clearance problems with a number of archive clips used in the film, it has never had an official DVD release.

Wolfgang Halbig Pushes for Independent Sandy Hook Investigation

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From SandyHookJustice.com:

Wolfgang Halbig has lived a life of serving the public as law enforcement officer, school official, safety expert.

Formerly the Executive Director of the National Institute for School and Workplace Safety, Wolfgang Halbig has recently formed a new safety and security company, WK & Associates. Previous to founding NISWS, Mr. Halbig worked in public education as a teacher, dean, assistant principal, principal, director of an alternative school and as the Director for School Safety and Security of the Seminole County Public Schools, a school district of approximately 65,000 students.

Mr. Halbig also has law enforcement experience as a former Florida State Trooper in Miami, Florida, and as a United States Customs Inspector. As a result of his unique background in both law enforcement and education, Mr. Halbig has been invited to provide presentations and keynotes to a variety of audiences, including the National Education Law Conference, the National School Board Association, the Oklahoma School Board Association, the Illinois School Board Association, the New York State School Board Association and the Florida School Board Association.

A nationally recognized school safety and security expert and consultant, he has provided safety training and school assessments for more than 8,000 school districts nationwide.

Mr. Halbig has also been featured on NBC’s Dateline and CBS’ Good Morning America.

Halbig earned his B.S. from Abilene Christian University, Abilene TX, and his M.S. from Nova University in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.

Sandy Hook Justice is about finding answers to Sixteen simple questions that MUST require an answer.

The purpose of this fundraising campaign is to force compliance and cooperation in finding out the facts behind the events surrounding Sandy Hook Elementary School on 12/14/2012.  The funds collected here are going directly towards expenses including attorney’s fees, Freedom of Information Act Requests, as well as private investigators.

As a certified school safety expert, it is my very job to uncover all of the facts around this event in the interest of public safety.  I am performing this investigation completely in the interests of the citizens of the United States.

Address:
Wolfgang W. Halbig
25526 Hawks Run Ln
Sorrento, FL 32776

VISIT FUNDRAISING PAGE HERE

Halbig’s 16 unanswered questions:

1. Who directed the New Haven FBI field offices to classify the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting on Dec 14, 2012?

2. Why and for what reason would the FBI classify the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting when they did not classify the Columbine shooting which also was a Mass casualty shooting incident?

3. Who on Dec 14, 2012 was the Incident Commander as required by the Federal Emergency Management Administration in directing the Mass Casualty Shooting Incident at the Sandy Hook Elementary School?

• Who on Dec 14, 2012 at the Incident Command Center made the ordering of Porta Potties a high priority since they were delivered within 3 hours of the school shooting? Never ever heard off.
• Who ordered those Porta Potties from Southbury, Ct?
• When I called the Porta Pottie Company after searching for over a week as to who and when they were ordered I was told that it is classified and they are not allowed to share that information with me.
• The next morning I received a phone call from the Southbury Police Department at my home telling me not to call that company again since I was harassing them.
• High priority for toilets but not for Life Star Trauma helicopters or paramedics.

4. Who and Why did they not request the Life Star Helicopters knowing that children and school staff are seriously injured and clinging to life?

5. Who and Why did they not allow the Paramedics and the EMT’S inside the Sandy Hook School to treat the seriously injured or those children and school staff clinging to life?

6. Who declared all 18 children and six school staff members legally dead within the first 8 minutes?

7. Who was the Certified Environmental Bio-Hazard Decontamination company contracted by the Newtown Public Schools to remove 45-65 gallons of blood, skull fragments, brain tissues, bodily fluids, blood soaked carpets and any other decontaminated area inside the Sandy Hook School?

8. Why does an off duty Lt from the Newtown Police Department refuse to leave his off duty work assignment at a construction site on Dec 14, 2012 when hearing that shots have been fired at the Sandy Hook Elementary School?

9. Who at the Newtown Public Schools notified all of the parents in writing as required by CT law that had children attending the Sandy Hook Elementary School as well as every school staff member every school year of all the potential life threatening chemical hazards. The school had high levels of lead paint throughout the entire school, Asbestos in the ceiling time and floor tile, asbestos in the insulation and most of all the school had very high levels of PCB?

10. Who provided the urgent medical care to the two children who were not transported to the Danbury Trauma Center until an hour after the school was deemed safe for that 15-mile drive?

11. Who treated those two children who had been shot multiple times like three to 11 times since they did not allow the paramedics and EMT’S inside the Sandy Hook Elementary School?

12. Why did the parents of the two children who died at the Danbury hospital not allow their children to donate their organs to other children waiting for the gift of life?

13. What happened to the 500 children and 60 school staff members from Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec 14, 2012?

14. Who was the police officer calling into the Newtown Police dispatcher stating in his words that he has multiple weapons, he has a rifle and a shotgun and who has the rifle and the shotgun as the chain of evidence should show that was found in classroom eight (8)?

15. Why would a police officer by the name of Lt Vangehle at 9:45:21 am on Dec 14, 2012 from the Newtown Police Department after finding a kindergarten female child in the hallway make her go into room eight (8) and leave her? Room eight is a gruesome crime scene with dead children and school staff. Why?

16. Why would two CT State Troopers enter room ten (10) at 9:55:31 am on Dec 14, 2012 which is a gruesome crime scene with dead bodies of children and school staff and tell a kindergarten boy who they find in the bathroom who’s name is redacted and tell them so it must be more than one to stay and they will be both back when it is safe?

A recent interview with Halbig is currently posted at Veritas Radio..

Another unexplained and little-known aspect of the Sandy Hook case posted on YouTube 3/16/14: